Students on the campus of Xavier University, where a $5 million deficit reflects challenges the Evanston school faces in implementing its strategic plan. / The Enquirer/Tony Jones

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Inside the new Stephen and Dolores Smith Hall, home of the Williams College of Business. / The Enquirer/ Tony Jones

About Xavier University

• Located: Evanston • Founded: 1831 • President: The Rev. Michael Graham • Budget: About $160 million • Students: 7,300 total students including 4,000 undergraduates. • Tuition: $32,070 for this academic year, up 3 percent from last year. The average tuition discount is about 47 percent. Tuition is $1,000 more for students in the Williams College of Business.

ABOUT THE SERIES

The Enquirer this year is looking at the sustainability of a college system in which tuition, student debt and costs all are increasing, leading to fears that higher education could be the nation’s next economic bubble to burst. • Coming Sunday: Retirement wave gives colleges a way to trim costs.

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EVANSTON — Xavier University’s ambitions are clear: find programs from big data to business innovation where it can be a national leader while remaining true to its Jesuit heritage and the “Xavier Way.”

The cost of those ambitions also became clear this week, though, as XU eliminated 51 jobs, including 31 layoffs, as part of $5 million in cuts to pay for investments elsewhere.

The cuts are painful for Xavier, which has avoided drastic steps in the last five years, a time of economic stress for all universities, mainly by recruiting more undergraduates. Leaders hope the “repositioning” leaves it poised for more growth ahead.

“In everything we’re doing, we’re trying to identify a niche where we can be the highest quality provider that drives down cost,” Provost Scott Chadwick said.

Xavier probably will end up with more students than today’s 7,300 and more professors than the current level of more than 300. The growth is likely to come in different areas, though, including new programs in health informatics, an expansion of graduate programs in the humanities and a new School of Innovation.

It also will include a renovated Alter Hall at the center of campus and a $240 million capital campaign for scholarships and endowment.

Shedding employees while investing in new programs is a pivotal moment in Xavier’s 182-year history.

Just finished with an unprecedented building boom that has transformed the campus here, it’s about to welcome its biggest-ever freshman class with more than 1,300 students. It’s been bleeding transfers and graduate students, though, raising the specter of a deficit this year on its $160 million budget.

The layoffs Monday were the first time Xavier has had to cut staff since the economy crashed in 2008, a painful choice that most universities around the country already have made. Locally, the University of Cincinnati and Miami University each have eliminated or frozen more than 100 jobs during the past five years.

Xavier ran an operating deficit of about $5 million last year. It already discounts freshman tuition by nearly half to keep itself affordable, and so it can’t afford any tuition breaks.

The credit-rating agency Moody’s Investors Service said Xavier has a strong market position but also relies heavily on students for its revenue.

“Moody’s believes that Xavier’s market position will remain stable as a regional private university but that the fiercely competitive higher education market in Ohio continues to remain an ongoing challenge,” said the most recent report in late 2011.

Xavier students and professors, beneficiaries of the sprawling restructuring plans, said they hope it will pay off.

“It’s never a fun thing,” said Lynda Kilbourne, a management professor and chairwoman of Xavier’s Faculty Committee, “but it’s always an opportunity, if we view it that way, to build on our strengths.”

Xavier unveiled drafts of the plan early this year.

After a series of open forums on campus, there is one prominent deletion: a pledge to Xavier students “to develop their values and character, deliver an excellent education, and guarantee placement in their career or next educational step.”

Like many other universities throughout the region, it’s using a months-long planning process to build consensus around the changes it has to make to thrive in the more competitive higher education market­place.

UC, Miami, Cincinnati State Technical & Community College and Northern Kentucky University all have implemented or are creating strategic plans, all probably involving taking resources from one part of campus and giving it to another.

“It’s probably like 80 percent good,” said Xavier student body president Drew Dziedzic, a junior from St. Louis. “You definitely want to go to a school that’s trying to make itself better. Change is hard a lot of the time, but you want the things that are good to stay the same.” ■